God Bless You, Marigold
by Loveedith
Summary: Bertie sees Marigold for the first time.
1. Chapter 1

That night Edith had met Bertie in the corridor on his way down to dinner. He had told her that he was glad that he had met her there. It would make him less nervous about going down to meet her relatives for the first time since Brancaster if she was with him.

When Edith told Bertie that she was going to the night-nursery before she went down, he had asked her if he could come with her.

Edith always went to the night-nursery every night before dinner when she was at Downton. Not even being with _him_ could keep her from checking that Marigold was alright for the night. She couldn't enjoy her dinner properly if she hadn't seen that her little girl was well and fast asleep. And if Marigold wasn't asleep, Edith stayed and talked to her a little while, or sang for her.

Edith didn't know if Bertie was really interested in the children, or if he only wanted to be with her to avoid getting down to dinner alone. But of course she invited him to come with her.

...

That afternoon, when Edith hadn't managed to start the car, it had taken her half an hour to find Stark, and then more than half another hour for Stark to help her get the car running. She had feared that Bertie would just hop onto the next train and return home.

At least she expected him to be furious. Well, he had reason to be. She had promised to pick him up, and now he was left on his own without any explanation whatsoever.

But when she found Bertie, carrying all his luggage, he wasn't angry at all. He was just happy to see her. She realised that he was an even better man than she had known before.

He had kissed her, and it had been good, and she had managed to make herself believe that this would never end. He belonged to her, and she belonged to him. It would always be like that. Being with him - it was like a dream, really. She didn't want to wake up.

But she had to remind herself that he loved her because he didn't really know her. She hadn't told him the most important thing about her life. He would stop loving her as soon as he knew about that.

Sometimes she felt really horrible about keeping him in the dark about Marigold.

...

Now they were standing there in the nursery while she told him about the sleeping children. And he was interested in them, she noticed, of course he was. He smiled lovingly as he looked down at Marigold.

And then he said it.

"God bless you, Marigold."

That was when Edith realised she couldn't go on like this any longer. She couldn't let him believe that Marigold was an orphan that she was taking care of from the goodness of her heart, when Marigold in fact was the result of something most people would despise Edith for.

Bertie would probably be shocked when she told him. He would probably not want to have anything more to do with her. But it couldn't be helped, Edith couldn't live with herself any longer if she didn't tell Bertie the truth. He didn't deserve to be lied to like that.

So, she took a deep breath. Then she looked him straight into his eyes and said:

"Bertie, there is something I need to tell you. Something important, something that will probably make you look down on me."

Bertie was about to protest, but before he had time to say anything, the door opened and Nanny Jones returned.

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AN: Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

All from the start, when Marigold was taken to the nursery at Downton for the first time, Edith had worried about how the Nannies would treat her. She knew that Nannie Jones and the other nannies were good people, and Edith's mother had told them all that Marigold was to be treated exactly like the other children.

But Edith still worried. Because she remembered that awful nanny who had thought that Sybbie had no right to be treated as well as George, just because her father was only a driver. Sybbie was the grandchild of Edith's parents, and everybody knew that, but Marigold was known to be just an orphan that the Granthams had taken care of.

The worst thing was that if a bad nanny got to know that Marigold was also a grandchild, the child of her parents' unmarried daughter, it would probably only make things worse.

So Edith kept worrying. She tried to spend as much time as she could with Marigold when she was at Downton, to see to it that the little girl was well taken care of.

...

Nanny Jones had interrupted Edith's confession, and within a few minutes she and Bertie were out in the corridor again. They were both laughing in embarrassment.

"Why did that make me feel so guilty?" Bertie said with a smile. "Like a child caught trying to steel cookies from the kitchen."

Edith had felt exctly the same, but she knew why. She had been very close to tell Bertie about Marigold and thereby disclose the secret to nanny Jones. She was glad that she hadn't gotten any further in her confession.

But she still had to tell Bertie. If she didn't do it now she would never get around to doing it. She decided that she had to be bold.

So - to Bertie's astonishment - Edith opened the next door in the corridor, pushing Bertie into an empty bedroom, closing the door behind the two of them.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading! Thank you for the kind reviews to last chapter!

...

There hasn't been any updates or new Bertie/Edith stories for three months, and the last two were both written by me. So, I actually feel like the last one writing about them.

There has been nine Edith/Anthony stories in that time, ten if you include mine, which was more of an apology than an update. This is what I expected would happen, fanfiction is often written in frustration. The writer is unhappy about what happened on screen and wants to make her/his own version. Most of the Edith/Anthony writers actually started writing _after_ Anthony jilted Edith.


	3. Chapter 3

Bertie looked at Edith in consternation once he had recovered from the first shock at being pushed, almost violently, into a bedroom by the woman he was mad about. What was she up to?

He cast a quick look at the bed, not really believing that she wanted him to take her there. No, at least not now, when her family was waiting for them downstairs.

But perhaps she wanted a quick kiss and cuddle? He wouldn't mind that at all, of course not, but it probably wasn't that either. Because she let go of him as soon as she had got him into the room.

And the way she looked at him was scared and worried rather than... anything else. For some reason Edith looked terrified. He had better find out what it was that frightened her so.

"What made you do that?" he asked softly, smiling friendly at her, trying to reassure her. "What do you want me to do? What is it that you are so afraid of?"

So, he could see how scared she was of telling him, Edith thought. She wanted him to understand why life was so complicated for her, but she didn't want to lose him. And she could never give up Marigold again. It was all impossible, her whole life was impossible. She was living in a fools paradise.

So Edith hesitated, trying to find the right words. But deep down she knew there were no right words. It was the facts that made it all impossible. She couldn't expect him - she couldn't expect any man, not even him - to be happy about taking care of another man's child. Another man's bastard - she hated to use that word about Marigold, but that was what people would call her if they found out.

...

"Aren't we supposed to be down for dinner soon?" Bertie added when Edith didn't say anything more. "I don't want to be impolite to your mother."

She wanted to tell him that he would perhaps want to leave without dinner once he had heard what she wanted to tell him. That wouldn't be very polite either, but perhaps he wouldn't care so much about that after he had lost interest in Edith...

But she realised he was right, they didn't have much time if she wanted to give him a chance to regain his calm after she told him about Marigold. No matter what his decision would be.

No, she didn't want to waste any more time. She wanted him to know it all, she was sick of lying to him. It wasn't fair to keep him in the dark any longer.

She decided to tell him the truth without trying to wrap it into any fine phrases.

"I told you I had something important to tell you", she started, but then she hesitated again. He was looking at her with so much love and tenderness, she felt she couldn't bear to lose that. She just couldn't give him up, she simply couldn't. She had never had anyone looking at her in quite the way he did. She needed him, no matter how independent she usually felt.

She suddenly realised that she could never tell him.

"So what is it then? Please tell me before I start to worry!" Bertie said, seeing how unhappy she looked.

And she realised she had to do it now, in that very moment, before she changed her mind again.

"Marigold is my daughter", she blurted out.

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AN: Thank you for reading! Thank you for the nice comments to last chapter!

...

And please keep commenting if you want me to keep writing!


	4. Chapter 4

"Marigold is my daughter", Edit had blurted out. She regretted it as soon as she heard herself saying those words.

...

"I know you must be shocked" she said then, looking down at the floor, feeling thoroughly miserable. "So if you want to leave now I can make excuses for you, say you were called away on business or something... And drive you to the station... Or perhaps I had better let Stark do it... If you don't want to have anything more to do with me... I can totally understand that... I know how shocked you are... Don't be too angry with me... Please... I can't change my past... And Marigold is so important to me..."

Edith was rambling on, not allowing Bertie a chance to get a word in edgeways. He looked at her, realising that he himself was the thing that had frightened her - she had been afraid of his reaction. He didn't like that at all, but at least she trusted him enough to tell him. And cared about him enough to find it necessary.

...

Bertie had had some misgivings when he had jumped into Edith's car and she was driving them down the driveway to Downton Abbey. Nice and automatic - that was what Edith had said his kisses were.

He didn't want his kisses to be _nice_ for her - he wanted them to be _wonderful_. Because they were for him.

And automatic - that sounded really bad. Like something one did without thinking, like brushing one's teeth perhaps. It seemed quite obvious that she didn't love him the way he loved her. And since love was just about the only thing he had to offer her...

Then he saw Downton Abbey in the distance and realised just how grand the circumstances Edith had grown up in were. Of course it wasn't nearly as grand as Brancaster, but Brancaster wasn't Bertie's and would never be. His own land agent's cottage wasn't even his own, it was Peter's like all the rest of the estate. And although Peter was a kind man who payed Bertie more than was usual for an agent and probably would even give Bertie a rise if he decided to marry, Bertie still knew that he would never be able to offer Edith and any children they might get a life that was even remotely like the way Edith's must have been. He couldn't give Edith's children the kind of happy childhood she must have had herself.

But then again - Bertie had had a happy childhood himself, living in a small cottage without all the expensive clothes and toys and food that money can buy. And Peter - who had everything - hadn't been all that happy as a child anyhow.

...

And now - Marigold was Edith's daughter! Edith had a scandal hidden away that could explode on her and her daughter at any moment.

This came rather as a relief to Bertie. It kind of evened things up between the two of them, making them more equal. Because he really had something to offer now - if the news of Marigold's parentage ever got out it would be so much easier for Edith and her child if she was married and had a husband who supported her. Even if he was only an agent.

And this explained a lot that Bertie had wondered about, Bertie thought. Not only that Marigold was usually the first thing Edith mentioned whenever she saw him, but also those strange words about not being worthy of him that she had uttered after he kissed her that first time. He had wondered a bit about them then since she had so much more to offer than he had.

When Edith had showed Bertie the London flat he had understood that she had most likely been Gregson's mistress - why else should Gregson let Edith inherit all that? He even thought that Edith wanted him to know that, although she didn't say it in so many words.

But Bertie hadn't understood then that the affair had resulted in a child. A child that Edith hadn't given up, like most upper class women would have done in that situation.

...

After listening to Edith's rambling and excuses for a while, Bertie decided that he had heard enough. He gently put his hand under Edith's chin, softly forcing her head up. He waited till she looked him in his eyes before he started talking.

"I'm not shocked, you mustn't think that", he said, smiling friendly at her. "I'm impressed more than anything else."

"Impressed?" Edith couldn't believe her ears. This was not at all the way she had expected him to react.

"Impressed that you are brave enough not to give your daughter up", he said. "And I'm so happy that you have enough trust in me to tell me. That must have been difficult for you."

"But I'm not brave at all! I haven't given her up because I just couldn't do it. I tried to, but it didn't work out."

"That sounds even better. You are a good mother. And Marigold is a wonderful little girl."

"At least when she is asleep", he added with a smile, realising that that was the only way he had seen the little one.

Edith couldn't help smiling back at him. He was perfectly wonderful - she needn't have worried about telling him.

...

They were both quiet for a while, none of them able to finding anything more to say that was remotely as important as the things they had already said.

At long last Bertie broke the silence again.

"I couldn't leave without dinner anyhow", he said. "I'm hungry."

And with those words he opened the door to the corridor and they both went down to dinner.

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AN: Thank you for reading! Thank you so much for the kind reviews to last chapter!

...

Yes, Bertie is still the agent, and he hasn't proposed to Edith yet, that is why he doesn't say anything about becoming Marigold's father. The only AU thing yet is that Bertie now knows about Marigold. How will that change the dinner?


End file.
